South Dakota's long history of racism is again under the media microscope. From South Dakota Public Broadcasting:
In the early 20th century, hundreds of Native Americans from tribes around the country were sent the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians. Located in Canton, South Dakota, the institution wasn’t so much a place to treat people with mental health problems as a place for Native Americans who refused to assimilate in white society. [Karl Gehrke]The Guardian published a long piece on the thousands of American Indian children who haved been seized by South Dakota's Department of Social Services especially in Pennington County:
Janice Howe’s tiny home, nested in a sparse enclave of houses, is a warm haven against the winter chill. “They take children away [from families] because there’s no food in the house so I find a way to help them get food, keep their lights on, get their rent paid,” she says. “I remember that heartache. I don’t want any other families to go through that.” n South Dakota, where Howe lives, 51% of children in foster care are Native American. A majority of them were removed from their families on charges of neglect. It is hard for the families to keep fighting. Often it takes years to get children back once the state takes custody. [excerpt, Laura Rena Murray]South Dakota's experiment with a GOP-dominated congressional delegation and Statehouse has failed so many generations that suicide looks like the only way out of lives twisted by a special kind of torture.
SD sex abuse statute of limitations on civil litigation against churches and Indian boarding schools stands http://t.co/zGCITktNxJ #SDLeg
— Charles Michael Ray (@CharlesSDPB) February 19, 2015
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